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Get on board everyone, it’s time to explore the goings-on of an UNHEALTHY body! Meet “Bazza” (performed today by our lovely Tracey). Bazza eats A LOT of junk food - burgers and soft drinks are his favourite and he eats them on a daily basis - PLUS he does not exercise and guess what? His body is suffering as a result! Doctor Fairlie (our drama facilitator for today) SHRUNK us all down so we can explore just what is going on inside Bazza’s body. We snuck in the friendly way - through Bazza’s nostrils - and we found several problems.

Doctor Fairlie gave us all costumes so they we could perform the actions of : Oxygen, Blood cells, Neutrons and Gastric juices. Bazza’s red and white blood cells (played expertly by some of our possums) were just unable to fight germs. They tried their best but without healthy eating and exercise they were just too weak! (This performance garnered plenty of laughs as the blood cells acting required them to try and fight, but all they could do was fall all about!) The oxygen was unable to move properly around, it was very clumsy and uncoordinated - because Bazza is struggling to breathe! The gastric juices in Bazza’s stomach were also failing. They were simply unable to break up Bazza’s food properly in his tummy, and this gave him pain in his gut, and he was very sluggish. The neutrons needed to follow the messages of the brain but they just could not cope with the messages and were getting everything wrong.

Following this, the children told Doctor Fairlie the best way to fix Bazza’s poor weak body and thought about what they needed to do to his insides. Lucky our possums had all the right ideas and got Bazza to drink some water and try better to eat vegetables! Bazza was starting to feel much better. We could now see that the oxygen, blood cells, neutrons and stomach muscles were much more able to do their jobs inside Bazza’s body. Bazza’s insides were now working wonderfully together and happy. And the proof was of course in the pudding - Bazza’s POO! As you can imagine acting out this part of the story garnered some amazing performance skills from our Possums and many laughs! We excited out of Bazza’s body and Doctor Fairlie was very impressed with our listening, acting and following directions, and she kindly put us back to our regular size again. Well done Possums!

In our case it was the eggs! 11 lovely little eggs, fresh life inside ready to meet the world. We waited with baited breath for signs of life inside the eggs. Some of us were lucky enough to see and hear the egg crack and see the chick break their way out of the egg and into the world. Each newborn chick came out looking larger than we had expected, a bit sticky looking and quite sleepy! After a few chicks had hatched we noticed that the chicks would huddle together to keep each other warm. How very friendly! ​By day 4 all chicks had hatched and were placed together in the brooding box. Many children marveled at how quickly they grew and how long their legs were becoming. By the following week our chicks were devouring their food, and we knew our they were growing strong and we were able to hold them. Thank you to our Possums for being so gentle and caring to the newborns. We loved the sounds of the chickens chirping away daily in our classroom. The chickens have now departed Kinder, and will be taking up residence in Lila and Annabel’s chicken coops!

Next up in our study of Australian animals is the wonderfully iconic platypus! When you begin to research such a creature, you can see what a truly unique creature it is! We began the study with indigenous dreamtime story “how the Platypus was born”. This story explains the belief of the indigenous people as to why the platypus looks so strange!

We learnt that Platypus (surprisingly) have a small gland behind their feet that secretes venom! The reason for the Platypus thick fur is to keep them warm when they are underwater. But the bill is not furry at all! It is rubbery. The platypus, just like rabbits, dig themselves a burrow, but unlike rabbits, their burrow is deep underwater! In their burrow is where the eggs are laid. We found out that the Platypus eat ......... MEAT! Fish with shells, insects and worms! We now know that a group of Platypus is “platypi”​We have also watched a video of platypus swimming and hunting for food and marveled at the way a Platypus moves so well through the water, thanks to their webbed feet. The teachers expected it might be a tricky task to represent the odd shapes of the platypus, yet as per usual our Possums have amazed us with their creative skills!

Happy Diwali!Diwali is an ancient Indian festival. It is celebrated with Diya and lighting, home decoration, shopping, fireworks, puja (prayers), gifts, feast and sweets.

The festival of lights is upon us and we celebrated accordingly! Many thanks to Mahavir (Veer’s Dad) for transforming our Kinder room into the festival of lights! Veer and Mahavir took time over the weekend to prepare and we were all highly impressed. The teachers were asked to wear their more shiny, glittery and sparkly clothes. We much enjoyed seeing our young Indian friends in their best traditional wear!!

​Arpitha (Samrudh’s Mum) and Swarna (Rudr’s Mum) joined us on Wednesday to start our celebrations. They added some more, wonderful decorations to our room, and introduced us to Indian art “Rangoli” using coloured rice flower outside on our path. Swarna and Arpitha showed us their artistic skills in this area and many children followed suit. Swarna shared with us a Youtube video which gave us the story behind the festival of lights, and we enjoyed hearing Swarna and Samrudh sing an Indian prayer. We enjoyed some traditional Indian crackers “Nippattu” and Indian sweets “seven cups” and by showing us the way Diya are used during Diwali.

The children worked on making their own Diyas to decorate our room. Swarna then joined us again on Friday and helped Rudr to share a small candle with each of his classmates and some treats! It was wonderful to hear Rudr and his friends wishing each other a “Happy Diwali”. The children explored Rangoli further with Swarna and we could see the artistic talent growing with this art. It has shown to be very calming with wonderful sensory properties. Many thanks again to our friends for helping us to celebrate!